[Update #2]: Darktide's Patch #13 has now arrived, and I'm happy to say it's already looking quite amazing!
[Update]: All of Darktide's upcoming Patch #13 abilities, grenades and major talents have now been revealed.
After half a year of mostly bug fixes and general improvements, Darktide will be getting an absolutely massive content update this October 4th. The definite highlight is the addition of RPG-like talent trees for all four classes, which includes a plethora of new abilities, effects and playstyles to explore.
For example, Psykers will be able to deploy a massive shield to protect their team, blast lightning out of their hands without having to use the surge staff, or even just replace their brain burst ability with homing physic shards. Best of all, this is just the tip of the iceberg!
According to the freshly released developer update detailing some of the changes, each of the talent trees will offer three different Blitz abilities (grenade button), three different Ultimate abilities, as well as three Keystone talents that will let you seriously change up your playstyle. Add to that a variety of smaller talents that let you do stuff like change what kind of team-wide effect you offer, or even tweak base stats like toughness or crit chance, and you've got yourself a fairly customizable system.
In total there's going to be thirty points to mess around with, with only twenty points being needed to reach the bottom of each individual talent tree. You're not locked to any particular tree either, so if you want you can create a character that dips into all three somewhat equally. Whether that's going to be optimal, I have no idea, but given that Fatshark has gone for quality over quantity with the talents I have a feeling it's going to be quite hard to make an actively bad build. And even if you do make something you dislike, changing your talents is completely free!
Given the sheer scope of the changes, it should come as little surprise to hear that the entire game will also be going through a massive rebalance. Enemy health pools and spawn rates will be getting adjusted, damage and difficulty modifiers will be tweaked across the board, and by the looks of things, Fatshark will also be trying to make the combat a little bit slower in order to make effects like backstabs, flanking shots or suppression more relevant. After all, what's the point of a backstab boost if everything already dies in one shot?
While they haven't given any examples of these changes in action just yet, it really does look like Darktide will be undergoing a complete metamorphosis. Personally I'm quite excited as Fatshark, despite a couple of blunders over the years, have always delivered some stellar and highly enjoyable combat, and I highly doubt this will be changing any time soon!
Whatever the case may be, I'll make sure to let you know once Fatshark finally spills the beans and reveals the actual talent trees. Until then, you can read more over at the developer update.